[snowy1256]

Treyarch have released their latest map pack for Call Of Duty: Black Ops, the Escalation Pack, hopefully here to escalate the playtime of Black Ops (see what I did there?). It comes packed once again with four new multiplayer maps and a new Nazi Zombie map.

The four multiplayer maps range from medium to large sizes, the map names are: Zoo, Stockpile, Convoy and Hotel



Zoo is the largest of the new maps, set in an abandoned Soviet zoo. Its main feature being the Monorail that surrounds the entire map, this can be used as a quick but dangerous way around the entire map. More suited towards the run and gunner there are lots of flanking points all over the map allowing you to run up behind the enemy easily.

Stockpile is a medium sized map set in a Soviet village with a central building containing the aforementioned Stockpile, once again bringing back the signature interactivity of Black Ops maps this building has two, large, steel doors which players can open and close to redirect oncoming enemies through the other much tighter entrances. This map has a lot of long-range fire points surrounding the main building.



Convoy is the second to largest of the four, based in America on the idea of the Cold War invasion fears, the most significant part of this map is the large broken highway overpass, with multiple access points and raised sniping points on either end. The outskirts of this map are littered with buildings, corners and flanking points.

Hotel is the smallest of the new maps, with fully working elevators, in either of the two main buildings located at each end of the map, these take you between either floor of the buildings the upper floor suitable for sniping and defending team objectives. Most of the fighting happens in the open pool area, with its lack of cover adding to the mayhem that breaks out.

Last but certainly not least is the new Nazi Zombie map, Treyarch seemed to have gone all out, bringing in an all-star cast including, Danny Trejo (from the movie Machete), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Recognised as Buff from Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Robert Englund (Most known for being Freddy Krueger) and Michael Rooker (Most recently Meryl Dickson from “The Walking Dead”).



Along with Zombie Movie King, George A. Romero as the biggest feature in this map, he has become a zombie and will follow you around the map, slowly at that, but get anywhere near him, or hurt him and he will fly into a raging fit, chasing the nearest person to him, using his massive light as a weapon. This adds something new to the experience, which is so well known in Nazi Zombies.

Call of The Dead is also the largest Nazi Zombie map Treyarch have ever made, based on a movie set of a grounded ship, with a storm brewing your view being blocked by the changing fog.

Overall this map pack has certainly had a lot more work and effort put into it than the First Strike pack, making for some really good multiplayer maps and a rather different Zombie map, certainly worth buying if you enjoy the Zombie mode and want new maps for multiplayer.


8.0

This post has been promoted to an article

[Johnathon Waples]

Cool stuff!

[McMullzy]

Escalation Map Pack

The Escalation map pack is the second map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops to hit the marketplace, and as usual, is exclusive to Xbox LIVE members first. The pack contains 4 new multiplayer maps and 1 new zombie map. Will this pack shoot up the opposition or will it just get spawn trapped. The four multiplayer maps are Zoo, Hotel, Convey and Stockpile. The new zombie map is Call of the Dead which features a star studded cast of zombie slayers.

Convoy is exactly as the name suggests. It’s set on a bridge crossing that the Americans have been ambushed on by the Soviets. It features a broken bridge in the middle to get the drop on the other team, literally. It also has many small rooms where the action is aplenty. There are some nice cross map sniping point’s aswell.

Hotel is the most varied of them all with interactive elevators to help you quickly manoeuvre the map from ground floor to the first floor. It features plenty of flanking opportunities and windows in rooms to stop enemies capturing flags.

Stockpile is set in a rural village filled with cabins and a main focus building in the middle. The main building has interactive shutters to take a breather and reload or to flank the enemy. This is another welcome addition to sniper friendly maps with long stretches of road to stop enemies in their tracks.

Zoo is essentially the Black Ops version of Carnival from Modern Warfare 2. Like Carnival the rides are replaced with animal dens and pens. This is the most camp friendly map with the ability to camp behind a window in the fish tank.

Last is the new Zombie map, Call of the Dead, featuring an all star cast of Sarah Michelle Gellar from Buffy the Vampire, Danny Trejo from Machete, Robert Englund who played Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street and Michael Rooker from The Walking Dead. If playing alone a cut scene shows why you play as these characters and also why George A. Romero is trying to kill you. Call of the Dead is massive with plenty of areas to fight off what seem to be more intelligent zombies than before as they can now climb features which make things a lot more difficult. New weapons and Perks are attainable on this map. Aswell as Zombies you now have George A. Romero to deal with all game as he follows you everywhere with a lighting rod. If shot he will go crazy and run at you. This is definitely the most challenging Zombie map of all.

Like First Strike, all Multiplayer maps are classified as size Medium. This is definitely the most team based Zombies map so far and the characters are a change from the usual 4. Again, the pack cost 1200 MS Points which isn’t that bad for the content that you get

7.5/10

[MrNinjaTree]

Call of the Dead is one awesome map